I’m publishing this at contest deadline. I will update it when the results are in.
I enjoy following the Pattern Review Sewing Bees. This year, with the Bee falling in January, I thought I’d have time to enter. I knew I’d have to put some of my projects on hold, at least until the first round is over. One of those projects is a lined cardigan sweater, made with a non-stretchy flame stitch knit.
But the requirements for the Bee Cardigan were very different, so I could not make the garment I wanted to make.
The Bee theme is the same theme as the Pantone Color of the Year 2019, Living Coral. Coral is a lovely color, but it doesn’t like me at all. I plunged into my stash, just to see what I had. To my surprise, I found a teal blue green wavy ruffled knit from Fabric Mart. The undulating ruffles resembled ripples on water. I decided to embroider a coral reef onto the ripply teal knit. I needed a lining to protect the back side of the embroidery. Further searching through the stash turned up a blue rayon knit, leftover from another project. Also from Fabric Mart.
EMBROIDERY
I knew I’d need to combine elements from different sources to create a Living Coral Reef. Continuity through all the designs is vital – mixing a cartoon-like image with cutwork or redwork would look jumbled and disjointed. I chose three design sets. Using only components from these sets ties everything together. All the coral pieces are from a coral set, all the fish are from a set, and all the shells are from a set. At the time of the contest deadline, the cardigan had only one fish. I plan to add more later.
Everything I’ve seen about how-to embroider on garments, especially knits, suggests embroidering on the fabric first, then cutting out the pieces. I used sticky-back stabilizer, which holds the fabric really firmly in place, and knits don’t ravel. So I went ahead and cut out the back, both fronts, and the sleeves.
I used a light weight wash away sticky back stabilizer. After some experimentation, I found the method that works best for me is to position the inner hoop upside down, cut a piece of stabilizer, remove the protective backing, and apply the stabilizer to the upside down hoop. I let the sticky hold it in place on the hoop and make sure the stabilizer is taut, then press the smaller hoop into the larger hoop.
I manually positioned the designs. I printed out the designs true to size on paper. I positioned the paper design and securely pinned it to the fabric. I put the hooped stabilizer in the machine and selected the design. Then I took the cut fabric piece and positioned it under the foot with the center of the printed design under the needle and the design (NOT the cut fabric piece) oriented vertically (up and down) in the hoop. I finally pressed the cut fabric piece onto the sticky stabilizer. On some designs. I stepped through the design in increments of 100 stitches at a time, noting where the most extreme points of the design (top most point, etc), fell in relation to previously stitched designs.
I could not find and official embroidery thread equivalent of Pantone Living Coral, so I used Madeira Coral 1045 from my thread kit. Until I ran out. Then I switched to Pink, Speckled Rose and Pale Orchid, running out of the last two colors also.
I did not follow the color charts for any of the embroidery designs. I used what I had in my thread kit.
Unfortunately, something went wrong after I started the fish. The thread kept breaking, so I lowered the tension. I lowered it too far. The machine made a huge thread nest under the stabilizer forcing the whole mess to become unhooped.
Cleaning up the fishy mess took a lot of time. I realized I could not do the sleeves at all. Instead of adding more fish to the back, I skipped to the fronts adding coral and shells to the upper left and lower right cardigan fronts. At that point I stopped and began construction. I planned to add more fish later if I had time.
PATTERN
I choose Butterick 6258 mostly because it was in my stash. This is a nice set of simple patterns, ideal for beginners. I made a shorter, lined version of the cardigan.
I had to shorten the garment to conform to Bee rules.
I lined the garment to protect the back of the embroidery, and to add a bit of body to the slightly sheer ruffly knit.
I did an FBA adding a small dart.
I cut the back, fronts and sleeves out of the ruffly knit. I thought I’d use the lining for the band.
SEWING
I machine basted twill tape into the shoulder seams to prevent stretching. I machine basted the side seams, too, then finished with the serger. I sewed the sleeve seams directly on the serger. I pinned them in place, tested them, machine basted them, tested them again and finally finished the seams with the serger.
Then I turned to the lining and band.
I did not have enough fabric for the band. In a panic I dove back into my stash and grabbed the first thing I saw that I thought might work – a teal blue knit velvet. No tags on this one, but I believe it’s also from Fabric Mart, a few years ago when they had tons of knit velvet in a rainbow of colors. I’ve already sewn up several pieces. I suspect the tag fell off somewhere along the way.
Sewing the lining was a repeat of sewing the outer shell. This is where I left the instructions and struck out on my own. I sandwiched the band in between the lining and the shell. That wasn’t easy! The velvet was slippery and thick. I ended up basting the long ends of the band together, basting the band to the lining and finally sewing it all together.
Now the hems. The sleeve hems were easy, just a simple zig zag stitch. I had planned to hem the lining and outer shell together. But, I’m still missing fishes on the back, so I hemmed them separately. Someday in the future I might add more fish.
<b>Pattern Description: </b>
Misses’ Cardigan, Top, Belt, Dress, Skirt and Pants
<b>Pattern Sizing:</b>
Standard up to size 26
<b>Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it?</b>
Yes it did
<b>Were the instructions easy to follow?</b>
I did not follow them all the way to the end, but the parts I looked at were clear and correct.
<b>What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?</b>
I like this pattern because it really is a simple, complete wardrobe. Pullover, pants, pencil skirt, and cardigan. I recommend this pattern for someone looking for a complete, simple outfit. I made only the cardigan.
<b>Fabric Used:</b>
Polyester wavy ruffled knit, rayon/nylon knit, velvet knit.
<b>Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:</b>
FBA, shortened to meet Bee requirements, and added a lining to protect the embroidery
<b>Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?</b>
Yes and Yes!
sewingroomcafe 